Immortality
by Avra Kedavra
Summary: Until Harrietta is ten, she's led to believe that she's a dirty freak, but after a chat with a snake and a shared dream, she's fairly certain that's not true. And with a slightly-evil genius, or maybe a teenaged Dark Lord, on her side, it's safe to say nothing will be as anyone really planned. Fem!Harry and Diary!Tom friendship; covers year 1.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE: Eve, Alone

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of Number Four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be caught up in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. So, of course, it was to the Dursleys that the strange and mysterious Verity Potter was set to go.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck—although he did have a very large mustache.

Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde, with nearly twice the regular amount of neck, which came in useful as she spent most days spying on the neighbors. She did not have a job, choosing instead to let her husband support her, in favor of raising her son, Dudley.

Dudley Dursley, though just a year and a half, was already spoiled. He was a pink beachball of a toddler, with soft blond hair that seemed permanently plastered to his skull. His eyes were blue; they were small and would no doubt attempt to disappear into the melon of his face if the child kept on as he was. Though people on the streets might give him dark looks and mutter about the quality of Mrs. Dursley's parenting, the Dursleys themselves could often be heard to say that there couldn't be a finer boy anywhere.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted: a neat, well-tended lawn, on which sat a square house identical to all others on the street; a large company car, which Mr. Dursley could drive proudly to and from work; more than enough money to support themselves, but they also had a secret. They didn't think they could watch the perfect life they'd made for themselves tumble down around them, should anyone unearth that secret. They simply wouldn't bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.

Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, though they hadn't met in ages, and it was quite common for Mrs. Dursley to neglect to mention, or pretend she didn't have, a sister. The Potters were, of course, as un-Dursleyish as you can get, and even worse, they were proud of being so.

Mrs. Dursley had conveniently forgot to attend her sister's wedding, and the last letter she ever received from Mrs. Potter was the announcement that she'd given birth to a healthy son: Harry James. After glancing at the letter with a disgusted curl of her lip, Mrs. Dursley threw it away. She'd never be so stupid as to let Dudley mix with a child like that, and Harry was a filthy common name.

* * *

On a dark Tuesday night, which followed diligently behind a dull grey day, an old man appeared suddenly on Privet Drive. This did not mean that the man walked quickly to Privet Drive: He just popped into existence as though he'd always been there. No one noticed his sudden presence but a tabby cat, who sat stiffly on the garden wall of number four.

The old man had a long silver beard, twinkling blue eyes and a very crooked nose. He wore a set of robes and a purple cloak, which he rummaged through as he swept down the street. He was the exact opposite of anyone living on Privet Drive, and he was unwelcome because of that.

From his cloak the old man pulled what appeared to be a silver cigarette lighter. He opened it, contemplated it half a moment, then began to click it. But instead of creating light, the cigarette lighter took it away, until Privet Drive was as dark as death.

With the threat of detection eliminated, the old man sat down carefully on the garden wall beside the stiff tabby cat. He did not look at it—in the dark the was no way he could have seen it—but the old man must have been aware of its presence for he said, "Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."

"How did you know it was me?" said the cat, but, of course, it was a cat no longer. It had shifted into a black-haired woman wearing square glasses and an emerald cloak.

"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."

"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day."

The old man looked mildly surprised. "All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."

Professor McGonagall seemed to wilt a moment, but then she rallied in anger. "Oh yes," she said. "Everyone's celebrating, all right. You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no—even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news."

The old man looked as if he wanted to say something at this point—ask why Professor McGonagall had been watching the news—but held his tongue.

"Flocks of owls... shooting stars..." the professor continued. "They're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent. I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle; he never had much sense."

The old man stared reproachfully at the professor. "You can't blame them. We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."

"I know that. But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless: out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors." And here, the professor glanced meaningfully at the old man, as if to ask what was true and what was not. But he said nothing, so Professor McGonagall went on: "A fine thing it would be if on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have gone at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"

The old man—Dumbledore—rummaged through the pockets of his cloak again, and retrieved a small box. "It certainly seems so. We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a sherbet lemon?"

"A what?"

"A sherbet lemon. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."

"No, thank you. As I say, if You-Know-Who has gone—"

"My dear Professor," Dumbledore said, "surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his chosen name. All this "You-Know-Who" nonsense... for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched at the sound of the "proper name" but Dumbledore paid her no mind. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying "You-Know-Who." I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."

"I know you haven't, but you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know-Who—oh, all right—Voldemort was frightened of."

"You flatter me. Voldemort had powers I will never have."

"Only because you're too noble to use them."

"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."

Professor McGonagall shot Dumbledore a rather exasperated look. "The owls are nothing to the rumors that are flying around," she said. "You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"

Dumbledore said nothing. He extracted another sherbet lemon—as calm as you please—and continued to watch Professor McGonagall.

"What they're saying is that last night, Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are—are—they're—dead." The last word was choked and final.

Dumbledore bowed his head. "Harry, too."

Professor McGonagall gasped. "Lily and James... Little Harry? I can't believe it—I don't want to believe it... Oh, Albus." The tears Professor McGonagall seemed to have been fighting flowed, then.

Dumbledore patted her on the shoulder. "I know," he said gravely, and he did. You could tell by the look on his face.

"That's not all." Professor McGonagall's voice trembled. "They're saying he tried to kill the Potter children, Harry and Verity, but he couldn't. He couldn't kill... No one knows why, or how, but when he couldn't kill the Potter twins, Voldemort's power somehow broke, and that's why he's gone."

Dumbledore nodded grimly. "This is partly true. Harry Potter is dead, I'm afraid. Only Verity Potter survived."

"After all this time... all he's done... all we thought and the people he's killed... he couldn't kill that little girl? How in the name of heaven did she survive?"

"We can only guess. We may never know."

Professor McGonagall pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

Dumbledore took a gold pocketwatch, with twelve little hands, from his cloak and looked it over. "Hagrid's late," he said. "I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here?"

"Yes," Professor McGonagall agreed stiffly. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here of all places?"

"I've come to bring Verity to live with her aunt and uncle." Dumbledore gestured grandly at number four.

Professor McGonagall jumped to her feet. "You don't mean—you can't mean the people who live here. Dumbledore—you can't. I've been watching them all day; they're the worst sort of Muggles imaginable. And they've got this son; I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, begging for sweets. Verity Potter, come and live here?"

"It's the best place for her." Dumbledore rose to stand beside the professor. "As an added precaution, she'll take her brother's name. Harrietta, I was thinking—it's close enough. We can make no secret of Verity's existence now; as we speak the _Prophet_ is gathering information on "the Girl Who Survived" or some-such nonsense. Her aunt and uncle will be able to explain things when she's older. I've written them a letter."

Professor McGonagall crumpled back down to the garden wall. "A letter? Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand her. They cannot protect her. And our world would take her. She'll be famous. I wouldn't be surprised if today came to be known as Verity Potter Day. Let her stay."

Dumbledore shook his head. "It would be enough to turn any child's head. Famous before she can walk and talk. Famous for something she can't even remember? Can't you see how much better she'll be, growing up away from all that until she is ready to take it? Can't you see how much safer—"

"They aren't asking for her yet. We have time." Professor McGonagall seemed to be on the verge of shouting. With great effort she said more quietly, "Verity Potter and the Longbottom boy would be best protected if they stayed together, behind the strongest—"

"But it isn't Verity Potter coming to live here. It's Harrietta," Dumbledore interjected. "She'll be safest with her family, hidden behind her brother's name. The strongest wards would only alert the wrong people of something important behind those wards. Obscurity is the safest hiding-place there is."

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth as if she wanted to argue, but closed it again. "Yes," she said. "You're right—of course you're right. But how is she getting here?" She eyed Dumbledore's cloak, as though Verity might be hidden in its folds.

"Hagrid's bringing her."

"You think it wise to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"

"I would trust Hagrid with my life."

"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall, "but he does tend to— What was that?"

A low rumbling noise came ever-closer, like thunder before a storm. It rose to a terrible criscendo, and then stopped. A huge motorcycle fell from the sky with a thump.

If the motorcycle was huge, the man astride it was gigantic. He was twice as tall as an ordinary man and five times as wide. In his muscular arms, with surprising gentleness, he held a small bundle wrapped in a blue blanket.

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore. "At last. Where did you get that?" He gestured at the flying motorcycle.

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," Hagrid said proudly. "Young Sirius Black lent it me."

"No problems, were there?"

"No, sir." Hagrid carefully dismounted the motorcycle. "Molly Weasley didn't seem too keen on partin' with her, but she came 'round in the end. Verity fell asleep, just as we was flyin' over Bristol."

Both Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall leaned over the bundle Hagrid held. Inside, a baby girl la y lay fast asleep. Dumbledore moved aside a jet-black curl to reveal a raw cut, in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Professor McGonagall reached out, as if to touch the cut. "Is that where—"

"Yes," answered Dumbledore. "She'll have that scar for ever."

They stood in silence, contemplating baby Verity, until Dumbledore said, "Give her here, Hagrid. We'd better get this over with." Dumbledore took Verity—soon to be Harrietta—and turned toward the Dursleys' house.

"Could I say goodbye to her, sir?" Hagrid asked.

At Dumbledore's nod of assent, Hagrid bent his great shaggy head over the baby and gave her what must have been a very scratchy kiss.

Then, he let out a howl like a wounded dog, which woke the baby, who began to cry.

"Shh," said Professor McGonagall. "You'll wake the Muggles."

"S-Sorry," Hagrid sobbed. He took out a large handkerchief and buried his face in it. "But I can't stand it. Lily an' James an' Harry dead, and poor little Verity off to live alone with Muggles—"

"Yes, yes: it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found." Professor McGonagall patted Hagrid gingerly on the arm, but she was blinking back tears of her own.

Professor Dumbledore was soothing baby Verity, much more quietly than Hagrid was being comforted, and when she seemed calmer, Dumbledore stepped over number four's garden wall. He laid the baby on number four's step and knelt beside her. With a tiny silver needle and a drop of Verity's blood, the wards—to protect Harrietta, for the greater good, Dumbledore told himself—were activated.

The old man tucked a letter into the baby's blanket and stepped back. He, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid stood, observing their handiwork.

"That's that," Dumbledore said finally. "We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."

"Yeah," said Hagrid. "I'd best bring Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall. Professor Dumbledore, sir."

With a roar, Hagrid flew away on the bike, and with a click of Dumbledore's cigarette lighter, the streetlights of Privet Drive sprang back to life.

"I expect I shall see you soon," Dumbledore said, but Professor McGonagall was already gone. All that was left of her was a tabby cat, slinking down the street.

* * *

Imagine mundane Mrs. Dursley's surprise when, on a dreary Wednesday morning at the very beginning of November, she went to put the milk on the step and found a baby girl wrapped in blankets already there, one small hand clutching a letter. The little girl's eyes opened at her aunt's scream, and she stared up at the startled Mrs. Dursley, stretching out her arms with a gurgle of laughter.

 _The child is to be called Harrietta Lily Potter,_ the accompanying letter said, _and she is your niece. Born at war and in the presence of a spy, it was deemed best to conceal everything. Every small detail, including the gender and given name of this child, could be used against us._

 _Your home holds a special protection for Harrietta, and as long as she calls it her home, too, those who would do her harm can not touch her._

 _Keep her safe, Petunia. Many condolences. Your sister fought bravely._

It was grudgingly that the Dursleys took Harrietta, but there would never be love left over for her in their care. The only reasons the child wasn't shipped off to the nearest opphanage were that Mrs. Dursley owed her sister for every unkind word she'd ever said and the numerous mean things she'd done, and that she couldn't help but admire the way Lily had sacrificed herself for the safety of her daughter. Sometimes, on the darker side of midnight, Mrs. Dursley wondered if—doubted that—she loved her family enough to sacrifice her own life for them, and the prospect made her feel bitter and hollow and unwell.

In a hushed argument between Mr. and Mrs. Dursley all was settled: Harrietta could stay, though Mr. Dursley agreed with the utmost reluctance. "She doesn't belong here, Petunia," he sighed. "I have half a mind to refuse to shelter one of her lot on principle alone. It might even be kinder; if anything could stamp the freakishness out, it's the system."

"We'll just have to make the best of it, dear," Mrs. Dursley said, and she stared down a moment at Harrietta Potter with thinly-veiled pity. "If anyone can get rid of her freakishness, it's you."

Harrietta, almost as if she understood the proceedings around her, whimpered fitfully. She stared up at her aunt with her mother's green eyes.

Mrs. Dursley shivered. Something about the baby's stare made Mrs. Dursley unreasonably nervous. "We'll just put her in the cupboard," she decided, and she rose, gingerly lifted the baby as though it might bite her, and went to do just that: She stashed little Harrietta in the cupboard under the stairs, where she was out of sight, out of mind.

There was no way the isolated, rather melancholy child Harrietta grew up to be would know—would guess-that all over England people met in secret while her living arrangements were made. They raised glasses of smoky liquor in the shadowed corners of London, in lonely manors on the moors, around cozy fires in small villages. They whispered as glass clinked on glass:

"Here's to the end of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, to the Girl Who Lived, to the end of the war."

And how could they, poor jubilants, ever guess that they were wrong? For the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the newly-named Harrietta were the catalyst, the beginning of something much murkier, much darker, than they could ever have imagined.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. If you recognize anything, it's from _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ (Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived.)

I changed Harrietta's birthname because, as a Reddit user pointed out somewhere down the line, Lily probably wouldn't have named her daughter some weird feminine form of Harry. Most likely fem!Harry's name would be a flower name, but none of the flower names I found and liked were sufficiently British for this. Verity means "truth" and, like Harry, has always struck me as a very old, stuffy name.

I hope you enjoy the new and hopefully improved version of this story.

—Avra Kedavra


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO: Serpents of Eden

"Up. Get up. Now." With each sharp call, Aunt Petunia rapped at the door to the cupboard under the stairs.

Harrietta Lily Potter—called Harry now, much to the consternation of the adults in her life—listened to Aunt Petunia moving to the kitchen, and the sizzle of frying pan on stove. It was probably the bacon, Harry thought dully, pressing a hand to her throbbing head. The headache would pass in a moment, but did Aunt Petunia really have to scream at her first thing in the morning? Blearily Harry stretched, and risked a quiet moment to enjoy the little warm cocoon she'd made herself.

She let her mind breeze over the dream she'd just had. It had been interesting, to say the least—interesting and pleasant and achingly familiar, as if she'd had the dream before: Something to do with a flying motorcycle, of all things. Was such a motorcycle even possible? It might be, Harry decided; technology was always advancing—just look at that new computer Dudley was hell-bent on having. According to the advertisements, it could run three games at once—though why anybody would want to run three games at once was beyond her.

With another sharp knock on the door, Aunt Petunia asked, "Are you dressed yet?"

"Nearly," Harry murmured testily, curling back into the warm place. She wanted nothing more than to sleep a little longer and return to that interesting dream.

"Well get a move on, so you can look after the bacon. I want everything perfect for Duddy's birthday."

Harry groaned. Of course it was Dudley dearest's birthday. How could she have forgotten? This day promised to be nothing but miserable, and she decided that she was going to sleep for a very long time after its conclusion.

"What was that?" Her aunt's footsteps suddenly stopped a few feet away from the cupboard under the stairs.

"Nothing, nothing..."

Every year on his birthday, Dudley's parents took him out—to amusement parks and restaurants, to see a film or to an arcade—and every year, Harry was asked to make breakfast, clean up the wrappings left from Dudley's presents and to "be nice to Duddy on his special day." And every year, while the Dursleys were out, Harry was left with batty old Mrs. Figg, the cat lady from a few streets away. She was forced to sit and be still in a lace-filled room that smelled like cabbage, and to look at photos of more cats than anyone could possibly own, never mind manage. She had to make polite conversation and try to look interested at the prospect of another feline photograph to view. Harry dreaded all of it.

She got out of bed and slid into her clothes. She went searching for socks. All the clothes were piled neatly on shelves at the head of the cot, but somehow socks never quite made it there, choosing instead to get lost in corners and under her bed. Harry wondered idly what it would be like to have drawers for her clothing, but there wasn't enough of it to warrant drawers.

Harry continued where her aunt left off in the breakfast preparations. She wished whimsically for a self-cooking stove or a magic wand so she could abort the breakfast preparations and sleep longer, but magic was forbidden at number four, Privet Drive. All mentions of it on television, in conversation or even Dudley's computer games were met with anger, dismissal and time in the cupboard for Harry, because obviously the M-word was her fault somehow. Besides, the only magic Harry knew of was girlish and pink, good for nothing but shooting sparkles and found only in the princess movies that so fascinated the girls of Harry's class at school.

The Dursley men, being her uncle and cousin, ate copious amounts of bacon, and in preparing the morning meal it was important to be certain that bacon was crisped, not burned; burning the bacon wasn't fun for anyone. Aunt Petunia liked her tea with milk and lots of sugar, and she liked it laid out neatly: cup placed on the very center of the saucer, spoon to the right of the cup, a napkin laid out on the table to the left of the saucer. Dudley ate the most and made a mess. Uncle Vernon liked the paper to be set to the right of his plate—never the left. The little things mattered to the Dursley family, Harry learned, and as she was the one who prepared breakfast most mornings, she remembered each lesson.

While the bacon sizzled a safe distance from burning, Harry wistfully examined the mound of gifts that grew from the kitchen table. Why couldn't such a mound appear on her birthday? Last year's only birthday present had been a bent-up coat-hanger from the Dursleys, not even able to hold a coat. She thought she wouldn't mind the lack of gifts—not if the Dursleys would wish her a happy birthday, acknowledge the day at all in a way that wasn't a mockery.

It appeared Dudley had received the new computer, as well as several new games for it and the expensive racing bike he'd asked for. Harry could not fathom why her lazy pudding of a cousin even wanted a racing bike, as he hated exercise.

Punching was the only physical activity Dudley wanted anything to do with. His favorite punching bag was Harry herself—never mind that she was a girl and almost impossible for him to catch. She might not look it, but Harrietta Potter was very fast. She could have been the Little Whinging Primary School track-star, if the Dursleys let her try out and compete. "You'd embarrass poor Duddy with your freakishness," Aunt Petunia said the one time Harry dared to ask.

It might have been because she lived in a small dark place, but Harry was small and skinny for her age. She looked smaller and skinnier than she really was, as all she had to wear were secondhand clothes bought four sizes too big so she could "grow into them". Large green eyes stared out of a thin face, hidden behind battered round glasses. The only thing Harry found interesting about her appearance was a thin scar on her forehead shaped like a bolt of lightning; this scar was a mystery to her, because although she'd had it for as long as she could remember, Harry didn't have a clue as to how she'd got it, nor why it was shaped so funnily. "In the car crash that killed your parents," came the brusque reply to her tentative inquiry. This was followed by a curt demand not to ask any questions.

The explanation made no sense. What sort of an injury associated with a car crash would leave a scar with such an odd, specific shape? Harry was dying to know but if there was one rule she almost always obeyed, it was "don't ask questions." "Don't ask questions" had to be the number one rule for peace with the Dursleys.

Uncle Vernon entered as Harry was toasting bread and turning the bacon. "Comb your hair," he barked, and Harry turned away to hide her glare.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon." She set a plate of toast on the island and went looking for a knife to butter it. Why couldn't he just wish her a good morning, like everyone else's uncle probably did?

Harry had to hold the record for most haircuts within a ten-year period. It seemed that once a week either Aunt Petunia would look up from her cleaning, or Uncle Vernon from his paper, and they'd shout that she simply must have that "mane" cut off. No matter what they did, however, it just grew right back into the freakish black curls they so despised. Harry herself had given up on it; she just brushed it twice a day and prayed it wouldn't get in her way.

By the time Dudley arrived with his mother, Harry was frying their eggs and Uncle Vernon was halfway through the newspaper.

Dudley looked like his father, with a big pink face and small, blue eyes. Thick blond hair lay flat against his thick skull. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel, but Harry privately thought he looked a bit like a pig in a wig.

Dudley plunked himself down in a chair and began to count the presents that obscured the table. "Thirty-six," he announced when he was finished. "That's two less than last year."

"Have you counted Auntie Marge's present? It's here: under this big one from Mummy and Daddy." Aunt Petunia presented a small package to her son.

"All right, thirty-seven, then," Dudley said. His face started to go red.

Harry sensed a tantrum to be reckoned with coming on, so began eating her bacon at super speed. She wanted to be long-gone, should Dudley decide to overturn the table. She would be crushed by the new computer, most likely.

"And we'll buy you two new presents while we're out today. How's that, Sweetums?" Aunt Petunia must have also sensed the danger.

"So that makes..." Dudley's face scrunched in concentration as he did the math. It looked like hard work.

"That makes thirty-nine."

"Oh," grunted Dudley, and he started in on the nearest gift. "All right then."

"Wants his money's worth, little tyke. Just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley. 'Atta boy." Uncle Vernon rubbed at his son's hair.

Dudley's hands stilled on the half-opened gift and he looked uncomfortable.

Harry flashed him a wolfish grin. At least her hair wasn't ever rubbed like that.

It was at that moment the phone rang, and Aunt Petunia rushed to get it. In the few minutes that her aunt spoke on the telephone, Harry and her uncle watched Dudley tear through the wrappings on the bike, a video camera, sixteen new computer games and a VCR. He was just peeling back the paper on a gold watch when Aunt Petunia returned.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg and can't take her." Aunt Petunia jerked her head in Harry's direction, lips pursed in irritation.

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested dubiously as Dudley's mouth fell open in horror.

"Don't be silly. Marge hates the girl."

"What about what's-her-name, your friend—Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca."

"You could just leave me here," Harry said. This was an opportunity, and though she was sorry that Mrs. Figg was hurt, it would be another year before she had to see those wretched cats. And maybe with the Dursleys out, she could watch what she wanted on the television or try out Dudley's new computer... It was the perfect time to figure out why anyone would want to play three games at once.

Harry's hopes were dashed by her aunt's next shrill words: "And come home to find the house blown up?"

"I won't blow up the house—"

"I suppose we could take her to the zoo and leave her in the car..."

"That car's new. She's not sitting in it alone." Uncle Vernon pulled at his mustache as he thought the problem over.

Suddenly, Dudley's "heart-broken" wailing tore through the air. Of course he wasn't really crying, but Dudley dearest knew that if he made water come from his eyes, and he scrunched up his face, that Mother would give him anything he wanted.

"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry. Mummy won't let her spoil your special day." Aunt Petunia flew to her son and embraced him.

"I don't want her to come. Sh-she always sp-spoils everything." Dudley shot a quietly-observing Harry one of his nasty grins through the crocodile tears and the gap in his mother's arms.

Harry seethed. Dudley had thirty-seven gifts, a mother who loved him and a day out on the horizon, and he still took a moment to remind Harry that she was unwanted, the bringer of bad luck, the root of any problem in his life.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

"Good Lord, they're here," Aunt Petunia said, frantically patting Dudley's large back.

The moment Piers Polkiss, Dudley's best friend or favorite lemming (Harry couldn't decide which), was through the door, the crocodile tears had dried up and Dudley was grinning.

Piers was scrawny and rat-faced. He was the kid who held your arms behind your back while Dudley punched you, and though he and Dudley were the last people Harry would ever choose to sit between, she still couldn't believe her luck. Half an hour after breakfast, she found herself sandwiched between them, on her way to the zoo for the first time in her life.

There had been nothing else to do with her, but before letting Harry get in the car, Uncle Vernon pulled her aside. "I'm warning you now, girl," he said quietly, purple face very close to Harry's, "any funny business—anything at all—and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

"I won't—"

Uncle Vernon had already walked around to the driver's side door. He wouldn't believe her, anyway.

The problem was, strange things often happened around her. These occurrences terrified the Dursleys, and were things that Harry couldn't hope to control.

Once, so sick of Harry's hair being trimmed to no avail, Aunt Petunia brought out the kitchen scissors and started hacking. Chunks of black hair hit the floor, and by the end of the ordeal, Harry found that she was very nearly bald, but for her bangs, which would hide that "terrible scar". She'd had enough ridicule before this: for her weird name, her taped glasses and her baggy clothes; she didn't want any more embarrassment for the fuzz on her head.

Dudley, who never made anything easier, had laughed himself into some kind of fit upon seeing her, and she'd spent a sleepless night in her cupboard, tossing and turning as much as the small space would allow, fearing the worst.

But when Harry woke up the next morning, her hair had grown back, and never had she been so happy to see it. Of course she'd been locked in the cupboard for a week, but that was to be expected.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force her into a revolting old Christmas sweater—red with white puffballs. Every time the itchy-looking wool touched Harry's head, it had shrunk, until it might have fit a puppet, but not Harry herself. Luckily, she wasn't punished for this, as "it must have shrunk in the wash".

But Harry had been in terrible trouble when, at the end of the school year, the Dursleys received a letter that although her marks were good, "Harrietta Potter was climbing school buildings".

"I was running," Harry yelled bitterly through the cupboard door. "Dudley and his people were chasing me. I had to get away. I tried to jump behind some bins, and I don't know. The wind must have caught me. I wasn't aiming for the kitchen roofs, honest..." She had screamed, cried and kicked at the cupboard door, but for nothing.

It was futile. The strange things that she could do were freakish, and that was the dirtiest adjective the book had to offer, in the opinions of her aunt and uncle. Harry was a "freak", and she should be damned grateful, they thought, that they were trying to save her by "stamping it out".

Today, nothing was going to happen, Harry vowed. Today could be spent with the Dursleys and Piers, because the sun was shining, there was a bit of a breeze, and they were driving past Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room. It was going to be a good day at the zoo.

* * *

The morning was a dream. Harry should have known it would not last.

Piers and Dudley got large chocolate ice-cream cones on the way in, and because the smiling lady in the van had asked what Harry wanted before the Dursleys ushered her away, they bought her a cheap green popsicle. It wasn't bad, she decided, licking it contemplatively as she watched a very Dudleyish gorilla scratch its head.

Harry shadowed the Dursleys, but stayed a little way off, sometimes going so far as to blend in with other families. If anyone were to ask, which no one did, Harry didn't know the boys who were chasing her, and her parents were zoo keepers. She enjoyed the fanciful image of the zoo keeping Potters; it was one of many Potter images she'd entertained over the years to fill the empty space left behind by things she did not know: the names, faces and occupations of her parents, being just a few.

The Dursleys, Piers and Harry ate lunch in the zoo's restaurant, and when Dudley dearest had a small tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have nearly enough ice-cream on top, Harry got to finish the first one while Uncle Vernon bought Dudley another. Knickerbocker glories were too rich and heavy, Harry decided halfway through, but at least she'd got to try it and decide for herself.

After lunch, when the heat of the day was on them in full force, Harry, Piers and the Dursleys went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, and specimens were kept behind thick layers of glass. There was less of a crowd, too, so after scanning the place quickly, Harry found herself disappointed that there were no cobras or man-crushing pythons to keep the boys occupied. She'd have to be careful, lest they catch her alone and beat her up.

Of course, Dudley found the largest snake in the place. It probably could have wrapped itself several times around Uncle Vernon's car, but Dudley still wasn't satisfied. The snake wasn't scary enough; it just lay, like a coil of glistening brown rope, and it didn't even glance at Dudley as he approached. "Make it move," he demanded of his father.

Obligingly, Uncle Vernon hammered on the pane of glass that separated the snake from the rest of the world. "Move."

The serpent didn't even blink. It just lay, and after a few moments of staring contemptuously at it, Dudley dearest stumped away. "This is boring."

Harry took her turn to stand in front of the tank and look in on the reptile. She thought she understood him: laying around all day with big, ugly people shoving their big, ugly faces to the glass to get a good look at you. At least she got to see the rest of the house most days, and the cupboard didn't have a glass front.

Slowly, oh-so slowly, the serpent raised its head. It opened a beady eye, established eye-contact with Harry and winked at her.

Harry glanced furtively over each shoulder to be certain no one was watching and then turned back to the snake. She winked back, wondering at this unlikely communication.

The snake inclined its head to Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then gave Harry a look which clearly said, "I get this all the time."

"I can imagine," Harry murmured to the glass. "It must be really annoying."

The snake nodded emphatically.

"Where do you come from, anyway?"

The snake jabbed his tail at the sign near the bottom of the glass. _Boa Constrictor, Brazil._

"Oh. Was it nice there?"

Again, the snake's tail jabbed at the sign, and Harry continued to read: _This specimen was bred in the zoo._

"So you've never been to Brazil."

The snake shook his head.

Harry smiled sadly. "I understand," she wanted to say, "I haven't seen my real home, either."

"Dudley! Mr. Dursley! Look at this snake! You won't believe what it's doing!" The deafening shout startled both girl and serpent, and the snake let out a warning hiss.

Dudley waddled over and swiped Harry away with a meaty fist. "Out of the way, you freak."

Harry fell to the concrete floor, eyes blazing with anger. She hadn't even thought to dodge, and now her ribs were twinging every time she inhaled. And there was no reason for it. Dudley was allowed to hurt her for no other reason than entertainment, and if she tried to fight back, Harry would find herself locked away for years. Why could Dudley do what she could not? There was no logic in the situation.

All she'd done was talk—maybe just in her own mind, but she'd been having nothing more than a civil conversation nonetheless. Dudley's assault was out-of-line.

What happened next was completely inexplicable. One moment the glass separating the snake from the humans was there, and the next it wasn't. There were no shards to mark its passing, no sound of a shatter.

The boa constrictor uncoiled, slithering free of the enclosure, moving quickly across the concrete floor.

Chaos reigned when the snake made his presence known. People ran and screamed, stampeding one another in their quest for the nice, safe exits, the snake forever on their heels. One woman, so hysterical that she could barely walk, let a little black notebook slip from her hand. It hit the ground with a small thwack.

Harry knelt to pick it up. She found herself utterly calm in the face of the chaos, because it was obvious that the snake wasn't going to hurt anyone; he just wanted to be free—maybe see Brazil.

"Excuse me, ma'm? You dropped this." Harry ran after the white-faced woman, brandishing the book, expecting her to take it.

Instead, the woman recoiled. She bared her teeth in an animalistic snarl of fear and shrieked, "Get rid of that. Don't you dare read it. You can't keep that."

Before Harry could ask what she meant, the woman had been taken away by the tide of people and was gone, leaving her with the offending volume.

What could be so bad about the book? Harry shoved the book in the waistband of her jeans and surreptitiously rebuckled her belt to hold it in place, She pulled her shirt back down over it all and faced the empty enclosure as she did so. All this done, Harry ran full-tilt to catch up with the Dursleys.

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia, who was white-faced and trembling now, a cup of strong, sweet tea. While the kettle whistled, he apologized profusely. "This has never happened before. You can be sure it will be thoroughly investigated."

Dudley and Piers could say nothing that made sense, and even Uncle Vernon looked shaken. He hovered behind his son, small eyes darting from here to there as though the snake had followed them into the cramped office.

Only Harry was calm, and Uncle Vernon noticed. He said nothing, but over the course of the next half hour, his face began to purple dramatically, and Harry knew she was in for it.

She decided, in the massive blow-up that was no doubt going to occur upon her return to Privet Drive, that she was not going to mention the low, hissing voice she'd heard as she caught up with the Dursleys. "Brazil, here I come. Thanks, amigo. Good luck."

"You're welcome," Harry had murmured, but she still wasn't sure whether the snake heard.

As far as Harry saw the freedom-seeking serpent had done nothing more than nip playfully at the boys' shoes, but by the time Harry, Piers and the Dursleys were safe in Uncle Vernon's car, the tale expanded. "Did you see it, Piers?" Dudley said. "It tried to bite my leg off. There was this lady trying to get out of there, and I had to trample her just to get away."

Piers scoffed. "That's nothing. It tried to squeeze me to death."

"Wait 'til Malcom hears about this," Dudley said. "He loves snakes."

Harry sat squished between the boys and listened to their stupidly exaggerated recountings of events. She wondered what was so bad about the book at her waist that it had driven the previous owner to such madness. No one was punching her, which was good because her ribs were still aching from last time, and because Piers was so riled up by the boa constrictor, he was unable to bring her "freakish" conversation with it to anyone's attention.

"And Harry was talking to it. Weren't you, Harry?"

Well, Harry thought bitterly. That was that. Thanks, Piers.

The moment Piers was safely through the front door, Uncle Vernon grabbed Harry by her hair and pulled her down into an armchair to be lectured. He stood before her, mouth working, but it seemed he was too angry to form words. Uncle Vernon raised one clenched, trembling fist as if to hit her.

Harry watched, heart fluttering in her chest. She was scared now. Her scalp hurt, but pain was nothing new. And though the Dursleys, aside from Dudley of course, didn't make a habit of hitting her, it looked as though Uncle Vernon really wanted to. What if he couldn't hold back this time? Uncle Vernon was a big man, but he had more muscle than his pudding of a son, and Harry imagined her uncle could hit harder than Dudley if he wanted to.

Finally, Uncle Vernon choked out, "Go — Cupboard — stay — no meals."

And with that he collapsed to the sofa, and as Harry scurried to the relative safety of the cupboard, she heard Aunt Petunia pouring him a drink. Brandy, most likely.

* * *

The girl was odd—odder than Lily had been, to be sure. Petunia Dursley stayed up some nights, wondering if that was her fault. Maybe if the girl was not so distressed all the time by Dudley's treatment, Vernon's dislike, Petunia's need to set her chores—make the child do something just to exert a little power—the freakish incidents that so plagued Petunia's family would lessen, or even stop altogether.

But it was too late for that now. Dudley was so deeply invested in abusing the girl that it would crush him to stop. Besides, it would confuse poor Diddydums, who had enough trouble already, if Petunia was honest. To be passively encouraged to hit the girl on Monday, then set against it on Tuesday, would be too much for the poor boy.

Freak or no, Vernon's dislike of the girl was too deeply-rooted to be eliminated at this point. He hated the girl's untidy appearance; her silent, almost shadowy disposition; the careful, solemn way she carried out his every demand. Petunia wondered if her husband would have preferred if the girl was openly disrespectful, so Vernon could hate her for a reason he understood.

As for Petunia, she was unsettled. She had expected the girl to be a carbon copy of Lily, bright and bold, but Lily's child seemed neither: She was intelligent, yes, but she did not seem eager to learn, and as for boldness, the girl was cautious to a fault: She hardly said a word unless she either imagined the response as positive or deemed the payoff worth the consequences of her words.

The girl was not beautiful, as Lily had been: As if to spite Petunia, her appearance was ominous and—there really was no other way to put it—witchlike. The black curls, the grim face, Lily's green eyes and even that damned lightning scar made the girl look wrong in normal clothes, and Petunia almost wanted to see her in long black robes and a pointed hat, because maybe that would restore some rightness to the world.

And if all this was not enough, Petunia thought, things were getting worse. Was that resentment Petunia saw on the girl's face that morning, as she maneuvered the plate of bacon onto the breakfast table?

And then there was the snake. It had not been a small snake, or a tame snake, or a pleasant snake. Petunia would remember it forever: the way it nipped viciously at her son's heels, the way it dragged its scales across the concrete floor of the reptile house with a barely-audible grinding sound. Petunia would probably have nightmares about the anger in the girl's eyes, just before the snake slithered from its enclosure.

With that anger in mind, Petunia passed the large brandy to her husband and slipped away to lock the cupboard door fast.

"It's not right, Petunia," Vernon said when she returned.

Petunia nodded mutely.

"The freakishness is expected from that lot. I can handle it, can't I?"

"Of course, Vernon," Petunia said, because that was what she was supposed to say.

"What I can't stomach is that girl, threatening our son. Dudders was terrified."

"So was I," Petunia said softly.

Vernon patted the sofa beside him. "I know. Just think, Pet." He ran his fingers through her hair, and Petunia let herself melt against him. "Just think. Soon enough someone from that lot will come and collect her, and we'll never have to see the girl again."

"Soon." Petunia sighed and let her head rest against her husband's chest.

Vernon turned on the television, and Petunia was glad: The drone would chase away her troublesome thoughts about the girl in the cupboard: out of sight, out of mind.

* * *

Harry lay in the dark, curled on her side, as the lock clicked in the cupboard door. Her heart was thundering in her ears and her breathing was rapid and uncontrolled. For a little while, she just lay still, eyes closed, trying to calm herself.

They hadn't hit her; they wouldn't—not like that, like bruise-spattered April Kelly, who was in Harry's class at school, got hit at home. People would notice if they hit her like that, and the Dursleys couldn't have people noticing her, their abnormality. But Uncle Vernon had wanted to hit her like that and Harry wondered how much longer she'd stay safe.

When she was calmer, Harry slid the black book from her waistband and rummaged beneath the cot for Dudley's old flashlight. The light was small and the beam was beginning to waver because the batteries were running out, but it would be enough to see by.

Switching on the light, Harry examined the book. It was plain black leather, with a year and a place stamped on the back. _1942: Vauxhall Road._ Flipping to the first page, Harry found it was blank, but for the name T. M. Riddle penned out in faded black ink. The rest of the old pages, she saw, were empty and harmless also.

So why was this book—this diary—so awful? Why had the woman in the zoo reacted so poorly to it? No one had written a word; there was nothing to read. Harry had never owned a diary before, but she had seen girls in school with them and knew what diaries were for: writing your feelings. Harry could do that just this once, she decided.

Reaching for an almost-dry red marker, she opened to the first page and wrote:

 _Today I set a snake on my relatives. It was fun. I don't know how I did it but I'm glad I did. I got locked up for it but I still don't care. They deserved it for treating me like something disgusting all the time. I don't want to be their freak. I wanted to help that snake go home._

Though the words weren't necessarily true, they were vibrant red and angry splotches on the page. Harry wanted to see them there once in a while, just so she'd be sure she wasn't crazy; she had caused that glass to vanish, and a snake had gone free, and despite what Dudley and Piers would say, that boa constrictor was nonviolent.

But Harry's words didn't stay where she wrote them; they began to fade, red ink going pink, until the page ate them entirely. In the same slightly-faded red ink as Harry's marker, new words appeared in a neat, flowing script:

 _And tell me: What made it fun?_

 _Because I'm not an awful freak,_ Harry responded, without hesitation, and she jabbed the blunt tip of the marker into the paper with all the force she had.

 _I didn't say you were,_ the diary said.

 _Sometimes I make things happen, but I don't mean to. They used to be things that affected only me but all I did was free a snake today. That has nothing to do with me. I was just angry and sad. Whatever makes me do things. It must be spreading._ Harry wrote quickly, in an untidy scrawl that marched in slanted lines across the page.

 _Interesting,_ the diary responded in small, neat writing at the top of the paper. Harry got the distinct impression that the book wasn't really interested, and that it was mocking her previously untidy writing.

 _Am I crazy for enjoying it, though? For being glad when that snake scared everyone?_ Harry prattled on. This was, of course, a diary. It had no choice but to listen to her.

 _I have not implied so, but you may be,_ said the diary, writing in short starts and stops, as though it were trying to be tactful.

Harry's heart fluttered. Bad things happened to crazy people. Last winter when things got really bad at home, Harry had tried to confide in the art teacher, tell her all about Dudley's bullying. That was what the school counselor, who had come to talk to their class the day before, said to do if you got bullied, so Harry thought she'd try. The art teacher had not listened, and, as Harry's anger rose, the teacher's wig began to turn blue, which led to some sort of breakdown. The Little Whinging Primary School art teacher was never seen again.

 _I may be? How would I know for sure if I was crazy?_ Harry wrote.

 _I don't know for certain, but there are signs. A diary replies to your frantic raving, and you do not seem to bat an eye. You unleash a corporeal snake on those "deserving" relatives of yours. Both are signs of acute abnormality, but only one seems a mark of insanity to me. Then again, who am I to make the final call? I am, after all, an enchanted diary._

 _What's "enchanted" mean?_ Harry asked.

Struck dumb by the diary's tirade, language had lost all meaning. Both the offered signed seemed to point at insanity to Harry. It was the only explanation that made sense: Harry only imagined the snake, that was all. But she didn't really believe it. Something else was afoot, here.

Harry's simple question was promptly swiped away, and the diary wrote, _This is going to be a long night, isn't it?_ The diary seemed exceedingly exasperated.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ An early update? This never happens.

I do not own Harry Potter. This extensive universe belongs to J.K. Rowling, and anything you recognize comes from _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone_ (Chapter Two: The Vanishing Glass).

This chapter is long and rambling, with lots of backstory, which I'm sorry about. But I figure this way, you get a glimpse at "Harry's" life before Tom Riddle. Isn't she just a charming ball of fear and anger, with a dash of acknowledge-me?

I hope you are enjoying this updated version of the story. If so, please drop me a review.

—Avra Kedavra


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE: Education

 _To enchant something is to influence it by magic,_ the diary explained.

Harry moved the slightly-flickering light closer to the old paper. Surely she had read that incorrectly. Enchanting was impossible, because magic wasn't real: It was pink sparkles on television.

Magic couldn't be real, or she would have learned about it in school. But surely it was some kind of magic that allowed her to communicate with the snake at the zoo. No one else could do that, or she would have heard about it. Dudley would have tried, if only to tell the snake it should hurry up and "eat the freak."

No: What Harry did at the zoo was abnormal. Freakish. Was "freakish" the Dursleys' substitute for the M-word? If so, Harry had a hidden talent.

But she dared not hope. If she was magical, why could the Dursleys push her around and treat her so badly? Why wasn't Dudley a slimy toad?

 _Was the woman who had you last magical then?_ she asked. Maybe if Harry could find the diary's maker, she could learn the truth about this magic business...

 _Lorraine Patterson was as far from magical as it is possible to be._

 _So she didn't make you?_

 _Isn't that what I just implied?_

 _If the woman who had you last didn't make you, who did?_

 _An incredibly powerful child, who did not read warning-labels. I see no reason to discuss my conception at this particular moment._

 _I'm sorry if I'm being rude or something,_ Harry wrote, _but I've never met an enchanted diary before. I'd never heard anyone seriously say magic is real before today._

 _My name is Tom,_ the diary offered.

 _I'm Harrietta Potter. Everyone calls me Harry, though._ The odd lightning scar on her forehead twinged, and Harry gasped, dropping the marker. Although it had been there for as long as she could remember, the scar never twinged. It never ached; it never throbbed. It just was. I must be growing, Harry thought. Maybe the scar would ache every so often as it grew with her. The pain wasn't terrible. Harry was startled; that was all.

 _It's a pleasure to meet you, Harrietta,_ Tom said.

 _What kind of magic enchanted you?_ Harry asked curiously. Maybe if she forced the issue, Tom would relent and tell her more.

 _Complex magic,_ Tom the diary replied, and then declared, _I don't want to talk about that. For someone intent on writing in a diary, you ask more questions than you answer. I am not a textbook: I do not give nformation; I receive it._

 _I'm sorry. I've never owned a diary before, and I didn't exactly buy this one._ Harry's scar gave a particularly painful throb.

 _How'd you come upon me, then?_

 _The lady who owned you last. She dropped you into the snake's empty enclosure, after he escaped._

 _Poor Lorraine,_ said the diary. _She always did have a flare for the unnecessary. I wonder what she hoped a zoo exhibit would do to me. How old are you, Harrietta?_

 _Ten._

 _Yes. The formidable age of ten,_ Tom said, in large script with many loops and flourishes. It seemed to Harry that the diary was mocking her cramped, messy writing, her faded ink.

 _You must have been ten once,_ she wrote peevishly, jabbing the marker harder than was strictly necessary into the page. _Books age too._ Then, she stopped and thought a moment. She asked, _Do you understand time?_

 _Of course,_ Tom said. _Why wouldn't I?_

 _You're a diary._

 _I have a brain, you know._

 _Do all enchanted books have brains?_

 _Books don't have brains._

 _Why do you?_

 _Was I always a book?_

Harry stopped, marker poised above the paper. It had not occur to her that Tom was anything more than he appeared to be: a book _I don't know. Were you?_

 _Do books have brains?_

 _No,_ Harry said. If books had brains, she would know: Dudley would have asked one long ago to give him answers in school.

 _Exactly. Books don't have brains, and enchantment can only do so much._

If Tom was a book and therefore had no brain, but could still think, what was he? Was he like the robotic henchman from Dudley's favorite television program, the robot who was only programmed to think and understand certain things? _Are enchantments like artificial intelligence?_ Harry asked.

 _I am not, nor is my intelligence, in any way unreal._

 _Were you a person turned into a book by magic?_ Harry flipped through the diary, examined its spine. There was nothing to see: just a black book with blank pages. There was nothing to indicate any type of magic, though Harry wasn't sure what she was looking for in that regard.

The ache in her scar intensified.

 _You are generally a very curious girl, Harrietta. Are you not?_

 _No, actually,_ Harry said. _I hardly ever ask questions. I'm not allowed, but you keep answering._

 _A rule against asking questions? That's restricting, and rather stupid. Asking is not the only way to gather information. Without asking, I can think of three at least: observation, research and reconnaissance. I won't even start on the politics of this rule: clumsy at best._

Harry was touched. Though she didn't understand how the Dursleys' rule was "political", the diary was definitely on her side. Despite "not being a textbook" Tom was very informative, and even better than that, he was willing to share information with her.

Harry's scar was becoming too painful for her to concentrate on anything else, but she tried to keep her mind on the issue at hand anyway: Tom. He was informative, but where did that information come from? If he was a person, why was he in the form of a book? Was he inside the book? Why would you willingly subject yourself to an existence in the pages of a book, only able to speak to those who wrote on you? It certainly didn't seem like a life Harry would choose voluntarily, which might indicate...

 _Are you trapped in there?_ she asked in neat, careful cursive.

 _In a sense, yes: I m trapped. As, I believe, are you. Tell me: where are you locked up?_

 _In the cupboard under the stairs._

 _And tell me again: Why?_

 _I set a snake on my family,_ Harry wrote, and her head throbbed with particular vengeance as the words disappeared.

 _That was it. How, precisely, did it happen?_

 _I don't know,_ Harry wrote, perplexed. _We were at the zoo for Dudley's birthday._

 _Dudley?_

 _That's my cousin. He and his friend got bored with the snake, so I went to have a look at it. And I don't know. We were talking, but I don't know how. Maybe it was a magical snake._

 _Doubtful. I don't know of any species of snake—magical or otherwise—that speaks human language. Snakes, anatomically, aren't made for it. Please, do continue. How was the snake released?_

 _Dudley's friend caught me talking to it and tried to show Dudley, who punched me out of the way so he could look into the snake's enclosure. I got mad, and the glass separating the snake from the people just disappeared. I don't know._

 _It was accidental, of course. How long will you be in the cupboard?_

 _Hard to say. I thought Uncle Vernon was going to hit me though._

Pressure built up behind her forehead, and Harry put the marker down to press both hands to her burning, throbbing scar. This went far beyond natural pain. Something was wrong with her.

 _And does your uncle hit you often?_ Tom asked.

 _No. people would ask questions if he did. He just locks me in the cupboard._

 _They should not have punished you at all, Harrietta. You were not in control. No one is in control at your age._

 _And at what age will I be in control?_ Harry asked. _Have you seen this before?_

 _Yes. I did once, and a long time ago, but this sort of thing doesn't change much,_ Tom said, and then he said something else, but Harry couldn't concentrate on the text to read it.

Her eyes hurt. Her scar hurt. Black spots were beginning to fill her vision.

What did she have to drink today. Definitely more than some days, less than others. She had even been allowed a full meal, which was more than could be said for some days. Was something she ate causing this headache? Maybe Harry should try being sick on command, to get the toxin out of her system. But if that was the case, why couldn't she hear Dudley screaming in agony or being sick from upstairs?

The only other thing which could have adverse effects was the diary—the diary, one should add, which was sitting open on her lap, bathed in the slightly-flickering light of an old flashlight.

With a burst of effort, as it was getting hard to move, Harry forced the diary shut.

* * *

She must have lost consciousness because the next thing Harry knew, she was lying between threadbare sheets, positioned carefully on her side. Her black curls overtook the pillow on which they rested, and a hand she could not quite see but could feel with startling clarity was playing gently with one of them—lifting it, only to drop it back to the off-white pillowcase again. The pain of her scar was completely gone, as though it had never been.

"I was just about to light a lamp," said a soft male voice very close by.

"There isn't one," Harry said, throwing back the covers and staring groggily around the room. She lay in a small, spartan space, and the only other occupants were a hard wooden chair and an old wardrobe. "Who are you?"

"I am kneeling by the chair. You won't quite see me," the male voice said, "but you know me. We met some hours ago, I think. It's funny, the way you lose time when it's not important."

"We didn't..." Harry began, but then she stopped. "Tom?" she asked, looking at a faint shimmer beside the chair.

"The one and only." Tom might have bowed, but his shape was too indistinct for Harry to tell.

"Where are we?" Harry slid out of the bed. "Am I trapped in the book now?"

"I don't know," Tom said. "You could be, but it is more plausible you're only visiting, by some fluke with the magic that traps me here."

"Does it always look like this?"

Tom led her from the bare bedrooom. He clicked the door quietly shut behind them and tapped the knob smartly with a finger. Harry heard the click of a lock. "No, this is my least favorite mindscape. It is usually much grander. I don't have the power to show you a better one. For some reason, this is the view things take on when I'm drained."

"I'm sorry. Did I somehow take away your energy by writing to you?" Harry followed Tom's shimmer down a black-and-white tiled corridor.

"No. Lorraine did that. Between the time we spent together and your arrival, I was trying to sleep."

"Did I wake you up?"

"Yes, actually; you fell from the sky—landed on top of me." Tom led her through the door of a shabby drawing room and motioned her to an old leather armchair.

Curiously, Harry touched the scratched and cracked upholstery. Yes, the chair was solid, although she'd heard Tom say clearly that this was a "mindscape", which implied that it was in his head.

"Tom? Where are we really?" Harry asked, folding her hands in her lap so as not to pick at the leather of the chair's arm. She sat tensely at the edge of her seat. Though the chair seemed solid, that did not mean it would stay that way.

"Wool's Orphanage, and sometime in the 1930s, I think. Yes: it has to be before 1940. They got a piano then. Tea?" Tom flopped down in the chair across from hers. Harry thought she could see him then, a glimpse of dark hair and pale skin in the corner of her eye. Tom was more corporeal if viewed from the corner of the eye.

"Yes, please, I guess."

From nowhere, two china teacups appeared and sat at attention on a little table between their armchairs. A few moments after, two saucers clinked beneath them. After another tick, a rather misshapen teapot plopped down beside the cups. "Can never quite get that right," Tom lamented, and Harry gathered that his shape was kneeling beside the teapot, hovering over it and prodding it experimentally.

"How did you do that?" Harry asked, staring transfixedly at the green-and-silver teacup which floated over to sit proudly in the air before her.

"It's magic, isn't it?"

"Magic's not—"

"Don't be stupid. How did you cause the glass to vanish at the zoo today?"

"I don't know."

"I think you do," Tom said smugly. "See? Magic."

"This is mental," Harry murmured, as the tea-saucers gave a dramatic spin beneath their cups.

"We are in my mind, so everything you do is mental. Sugar?" A small green bowl, with a silver spoon resting inside, flew toward Harry.

"Thanks." She scooped a generous amount into the steaming cup of tea which landed gently on her knee.

"You're quite welcome." Tom scooped a small spoonful of sugar into his own cup. Harry noticed that the spoon stirred the tea for him, once the sugar had plinked to the bottom. "Now," Tom continued, sipping the warm, fragrant drink he'd conjured, "we do need to talk."

"Talk?" Harry asked, taking a tentative sniff of her own tea. It smelled like the rosemary from Aunt Petunia's garden, but upon tasting it, she decided it was a bit like sweet toothpaste. "We're already talking."

"Yes, Harrietta, but this is small talk. We must talk business now. You shouldn't be here."

"No, I shouldn't be. Uncle Vernon'll kill me if he finds me out of my cupboard."

"You haven't left the cupboard. Not really, anyway. It shouldn't be possible for you to be here; this is my mind."

"I don't know how I got here. The last thing I remember is writing to you, but my head was on fire and—"

"Your head burst into flames?"

"No, it just hurt," Harry clarified, blinking up at him. "It's impossible for someone's head to really be on fire and then for the person to be unharmed."

"Not in this world," Tom muttered sardonically, mere inches from Harry's face.

Harry drew back and dropped the tea, but the air caught it before it fell to the floor and shattered. "What are you doing?" Harry felt as if something electric was shocking her scar.

"Be still. I want to take a look at this. I've never seen anything like it—as if that scar and I are two magnets, repelled." Cool, unseen fingers poked Harry's scar. At the contact, Harry cried out in pain, but so did Tom.

"Don't touch me," Harry said. "It hurts."

"Do you want to know what is happening here, Harrietta?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then be still. This is going to hurt."

Tom knelt before Harry and pushed her hair away from her forehead. He traced the scar again, as if he could read it like Braille. It throbbed and sparked beneath his almost-visible finger, and Harry's ears began to ring. "Stop it," she said faintly. "You have to stop now."

"Stay still. Look straight ahead." Tom's voice was tight with pain.

"I can't. This hurts too much."

"You can." He let her head loll back, and with an effort, Harry forced her eyes open and stared straight ahead. She tried to sit up straighter; she tried to compose herself. This was no different, Harry reasoned, than one of Dudley's punches.

But it was different. Even Dudley's hardest, most brutal slams were nothing compared to this new kind of pain. They were dull aches on a surface level. This was bone-deep, and it felt like her blood was boiling, like fire was flowing in her veins.

Harry might have screamed. Someone in that room screamed. She might have cried.

" _This is deep magic—powerful magic,_ " she thought. No; it was Tom that thought, but Harry heard.

" _Yes, you heard. Keep calm; slow your heartbeat before you have some kind of aneurysm. This is completely normal._ "

" _Get out,_ " Harry screamed frantically, though she could make no sound.

" _Just a moment more,_ " he pleaded.

Harry felt something both familiar and strange in her head, as if both she and somebody else were in there,sharing a space too small for them.

" _I'm looking for the point of convergence._ "

* * *

" _Lily, take her. Grab Verity and run. I'll hold him off._ "

The sensation of being carried quickly: upstairs, down a short hall and into a room with features that were too misty to describe. The smell of a flower she did not know and a warm raindrop falling to her cheek. " _You'll be safe soon._ "

She was set in a small, padded place.

Sounds of crashing wood and chiming glass floated up from below. High, cold laughter. Two men shouting. Crying.

" _Avada Kedavra._ " A thud.

" _Avada Kedavra._ " Crying. She cried too.

" _I love you._ "

Hurried footsteps thundered up the stairs. With a crash, the door of the room was gone. " _Stand aside, girl._ "

" _Please, no. Take me. Take me instead._ "

" _Stand aside._ "

" _Take me! Not my daughter. She's not the one you want; take me!_ "

" _Avada Kedavra._ " A flash of green light and then with another thud, the woman who had held her, she of the unknown flower, fell.

" _Avada Kedavra._ " A rush of wind. Green light—the brightest she'd ever seen. Pain. Such pain that she thought her soul was breaking apart and she wished for a moment that she could die. But of course she couldn't die. She was—

* * *

"It's all right. It was a bad dream for both of us, but it's over now."

Harry fought to open her eyes. "Tom?"

"You were unconscious again. We have got to stop meeting like this." Harry could feel that Tom was close to her, but she couldn't even catch a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye.

Carefully, she sat up. Her head was throbbing and her eyes were glued shut with tears. Rubbing her eyes, Harry looked around, but her surroundings were hazy and dark. "Where am I?"

"Back in the cupboard, I expect," Tom said. "You've been ejected. Your light's gone out; I wish it hadn't. There is something I have to tell you, Harrietta. Please come back soon. All you have to do is put yourself to deepest sleep. We'll have tea and..."

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ And here we are: Chapter 3, in which everybody pokes and prods each other for information they don't get.

I still don't own Harry Potter; JKR does. I really didn't use any dialogue from the books this time, though I did kind of paraphrase the "not Harry/stand aside, girl" sequence from _Prisoner of Azkaban_.

If you like this new version, drop me a review. I'm curious what you think of this ridiculousness. Which house do you guys think Verity/Harry belongs in? What do you think of dear, unstable Tom Riddle?

As always, enjoy, lovely readers.

—Avra Kedavra


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